All for one… The Occupy movement is just one of many that show people are again willing to take to the streets. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

During the boom years, political activism was either niche – environmental or pacifist – or weird. Triangulation was in, ideology was out. But suddenly it makes sense to think about large things from the bottom up: it makes sense to talk about capitalism not as this inevitable monolith, but as a system that could use some improvement. More than improvement, a system that could use some help. It makes sense to think about mutuals and cooperatives and fair wage settlements. It seems fair to ask about rich people paying tax, rather than just accepting them as delightful adornments. It seems reasonable to occupy St Paul's.

These are positions that just two years ago would have made you a crank or a dreamer, but the combination of global crisis and a properly, openly rightwing government has revivified both the sense that things could be better, and the awareness that we can't hang around and wait for the grown-ups to do it.